Two hours of sleep

[helpme_escape]

  Hi.

Took 2 Trazodone and 2 melatonin last night around 11:30. Woke up 2 hours later to use the restroom and then ate something (bad idea, why do I do this?) and now it's been 100 minutes since then. Took an edible gummy to try and get myself out of the glum gutters.

Hope y'all are having a deep sleep tonight. I want so desperately to get off this stupid sleep schedule. Let me be normal!

[dollyvee]

Hi helpme,

I'm sorry you're going through that, it sounds really rough. I've had sleep issues in the past for a variety of reasons and can relate that it sucks, especially when you have to get up and go to work in the morning.

For me, part of the problem was that there were health issues at play. Once those were sorted, or on the way to being sorted, it made it easier to find out when anxiety was keeping me awake (usually before starting a new job). Gluten and mycotoxins were usually the ones that woke me up and kept me awake tossing and turning. Now, if I wake up in the night really restless, I usually look if I ate something with gluten in it etc, or if perhaps it's a detox reaction, and then what's making me feel nervous/off etc. Inflammation in the body can raise cortisol and throw off our circadian rhythm.

This is just my experience though and I hope you manage to find something that works for you.

dolly

[Kizzie]

I've had sleep issues (insomnia and can't get back to sleep if I wake up) forever. I absolutely came to hate watching the time tick by on the clock. Sleep tablets didn't really help much and those that did I was afraid of getting addicted.

I now take some called Quetiapine for anxiety (versus sleep), and it really helps me to sleep through the night. It's a bit problematic if I take it during the day as I often have to lay down and have a nap.  I must confess I like that but I'm retired so it doesn't interfere with anything. If you working or parenting, not quite so good. 

[Armee]

Hey I had horrible sleep for years...2-4 hrs per night most nights of the week.

It took me a long time to fix. Because my biggest problem was waking at 1am I had to stay up as late as possible so I could get a better stretch of sleep. So one thing that might help (but it takes a really long time) is to go to bed close to your waking time (maybe midnight) and then if that helps you stay asleep past the time you normally wake, slowly push bedtime back earlier maybe by 15 minute increments until you find a sweet spot that maximizes sleep duration.

The other thing that was necessary for me,  personally, to really start getting good sleep. Was processing the underlying trauma. Sleep issues are common with ptsd. It seems logical to me and worked for me that you have to sort of put the ptsd into remission by processing the trauma to really get good sleep.

That did work for me. I now sleep most nights from 10 or 11 until 6 or 7. I might wake briefly and go to the bathroom but fall right back asleep. This change happened after really processing things I had been avoiding. It was effortless after that point to sleep well. I didn't have to do anything special to sleep.

It's not a quick process though at all and I wish you the best and send all the empathy in the world because not sleeping makes everything much worse.

[Blueberry]

Welcome to the forum, though sorry you a) had such a bad night and b) need our support

and then ate something (bad idea, why do I do this?)

I still do 'bad idea' things which I know are bad ideas at the time, e.g. stay up half the night last night on the computer, ate cheese in the middle of the night and all sorts of non-useful things today. Why? Things like self-sabotage from time to time are not completely uncommon with cptsd.

Anyway hope you have a better night tonight.